


salt and pepper

by jagwire



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, characterisation mixed between the musical and film, major character death is just tagged because adam and barb are dead, that’s all this is just a lot of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 05:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19761202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jagwire/pseuds/jagwire
Summary: in which Adam Maitland learns that he never should have lied to his wife in the first place, all things considered.





	salt and pepper

Adam Maitland had a deep, dark secret. A secret that he had never told his wife, the love of his life (and time after, as well) - a secret that he quite literally took to his grave.

He had meant to tell Barbara this secret. He was going to tell her at some point. But every time he went to tell her, he just got, well, so embarrassed. About all of it.

Because, by God, he was barely into his thirties, and it was all so ridiculously _him_ that he absolutely knew Barbara would make fun of him for it. It felt so generic, so, well, middle-class, suburban, and white that he could hardly bear it. After the whole stint with Betelgeuse, he almost felt as if he was finally past all of the white bread genericism - after all, he certainly was an entirely different Adam than the one that had died however long before - but this one thing, this one awful secret, held him to that old Adam by the slightest, fraying thread.

Adam Maitland was ( _insert shudders here_ ) greying. 

To be fair, it was just his roots and his temples. Barely noticeable at a glance. And he could use that to his advantage: if he kept his hair a little longer, you couldn’t even tell that he looked twenty years older than he actually was. (Oh, to remember the days when people would ask to see his driving license before he bought a beer.)

Still, though, before he, you know, died, he would dye (haha, die, dye, it would be a funny joke if he wasn’t so worried about the outcome of telling his wife all of this) the grey bits of his hair in secret, making absolutely certain that he hid any trace of the hair dye from Barbara.

It was the only secret he’d ever kept from her.

And he absolutely hated it.

But it had to stay a secret, because it was so embarrassing, and, obviously, she still looked as young as she did when they had gotten married, and she was so beautiful, because she was Barbara, and how could she not be?

Now, of course, having not expected the whole sudden, out-of-nowhere death thing, Adam hadn’t “fixed” his hair in a couple of weeks before the terrible incident, leaving his poor, awful, grey roots exposed. And then he died. And nothing in that stereo instruction booklet of a manual said anything about being able to change his hair. Nothing about haircuts, hair dye, or anything of the sort. It really seemed like he’d be stuck in hair limbo for all eternity. In a fit of desperation, he had asked Juno, but she, in more curt words, essentially told him to back off and stop being such an idiot. He tried his best with the dye he had stockpiled in the very back of his wardrobe, but it seemed to just wash out of his hair ineffectively.

Fortunately, it didn’t seem like the grey was spreading. But it also wasn’t going away. And Barbara loved his hair, so there was no way she wasn’t going to notice sooner or later.

But it had been a while, and they were so occupied with the Deetzes and their creepy old demon guy that Adam had managed to just… not think about it. As much as he’d love to worry about it, because, well, worrying was his favourite thing (aside from restoration and his absolutely glorious model of the town, of course), and that’s probably what earned him the salt and pepper look in the first place - he was just too busy. He was too busy to think about anything other than the main, highly pressing things, like demons and awful artwork and people that wanted to demolish his home.

At least things were finally interesting. He and Barbara really had lived somewhat boring lives, so the crazy was a welcome change - at least for a bit.

It was certainly a blessing when things calmed down. He could finally lay back and relax, maybe help Lydia with her homework once in a while, vaguely stumble through attempts to help her with her Girl Troubles - all the normal stuff that he had been absolutely terrified of doing when he and Barbara had first started discussing the possibility of having a baby.

Sometimes he regretted waiting too long to get a start on that. Only sometimes, though, because having a Lydia was better than he ever imagined having a baby would be. He didn’t have to change any diapers. Or learn Mandarin. The only foreign language he had to really learn was calculus, which proved difficult, of course, but it was worth it to help Lydia get through the class with great grades (that he was so proud of!). Most of the time, Lydia was like the wonderful daughter he couldn’t have ever imagined having the privilege to take care of.

Occasionally, though, she was awful.

Like when she found out about his hair.

He’d flippantly given her permission to rifle through his wardrobe - something about needing to borrow an old shirt for a chemistry lab. He wasn’t entirely certain whether or not everything had gone to Goodwill, but told her it was definitely worth a try to look. All was well until he heard an affronted gasp.

“Adam Maitland!” The offended voice came from literally inside his wardrobe. Lydia, tiny as she was, was fully inside the wardrobe. Just… amongst the few remaining shirts. “What is _this_?” An arm emerged from the clothes, fist clenched tightly around a box very clearly labelled “Just For Men Original Formula”. He could feel his ears turn very, very red.

“It’s, well, it’s a box of hair dye, Lydia. You’re familiar with those, right?” 

Lydia‘s glaring face popped out of the wardrobe. “We don’t discuss the blonde, Adam.” She grinned then, wiggling the box slightly, causing its contents to rattle like an embarrassing maraca played in the mariachi band underscoring Adam’s imminent (second!) demise. “We absolutely must discuss this, though. Just For Men? There’s only two men that live in this house, and I know damn well Charles Deetz doesn’t cover his greys. Where are they?” Like a flash, she was out of the wardrobe and scrutinising Adam’s hair like a hawk. He would have teased her for having to stand on her toes had he not been so… nervous? Uncomfortable, mostly. “Oh my God, your sideburns!”

He instinctively reached up to cover the grey at his temples with the tips of his fingers (he didn’t have sideburns, but he also didn’t care to correct her on her terminology). “And what about them, Ms. Deetz?” Oh, God, that did absolutely nothing to help his case. He just sounded like a pissed off and highly ineffective history teacher.

Lydia couldn’t even find the words to respond. She just laughed. And laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and as nice as it was to see her happy, that was enough of that.

“Okay, it’s very funny, my hair is grey and I’m thirty-two.”

“Wait, you’re only thirty-two?” 

“Wh- How old did you think I was?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. Why were these hidden? Who cares if you dye your hair?” Realisation dawned on her face and she poked an accusatory finger into Adam’s chest. If he had a heartbeat, it would be absolutely racing. Wait, why was he intimidated by her? Whatever. “You haven’t told Barbara!”

“No, I haven’t, and you won’t, either. I wasn’t going to have people asking me if my wife was my daughter! I decided not to tell her because I didn’t think it mattered. And that’s that.” He sounded more sure of himself than he probably ever had when he wasn’t dead - he supposed that maybe decomposition just does that to a person. 

“You’re going to have to tell her at some point.” He sighed, gently pushing her hand away from his chest.

“Yep. Some point. Not today.”

And that was the end of that.

And everything went… generally back to normal again. There was no normal, really, when a family lived alongside the ghosts of a married couple, but close was good enough for everyone.

Lydia left Adam’s hair dye alone and he did the same for her. They made a sort of pact that, as long as Adam would keep a sharp eye on Lydia’s so-called “offensive“ blonde roots and make sure they remained covered, she’d keep his secret.

The grey - along with the worry surrounding it - found its way back into the back of Adam’s mind once again. It was nice to just relax. To lie on the couch, his head in Barbara’s lap, only partially paying attention to the Home Shopping Network playing on the 12 inch screen in front of them. She absentmindedly combed her fingers through his hair, smiling at the intermittent contented hums he let out - he was just like a cat, really. A little bit antisocial, very attached to one person, and not allowed within ten feet of the microwave. _Long story._

She leaned down to kiss his cheek, then froze midway when something caught her eye. Something strikingly greyer than she could remember having seen before. She gently scratched at his temple, noting quickly that he seemed to like how that felt, just based on the growing smile on his face.

”Honey, where’d all this grey come from?” Her tone was genuine, but anyone who knew Barbara at all knew that she was about to tease him for however long ghosts stay in the world. (Hell, she didn’t know. She didn’t read the handbook.)

The look he gave her was priceless - like a guilty puppy just caught with his nose where it didn’t belong. He stammered for a bit, trying to come up with any sort of explanation that wouldn’t incriminate him to the netherworld and back, but nothing came to mind, and she already looked so amused that he knew he had already lost. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned toward the television, trying his best to imagine himself in literally any other situation.

“It’s, uh, been like that for a while. I dyed over it… for about a year. But, uh, the dead can’t dye, I guess.” God, he was so red.

“Why?”

He looked up, confused. “Why what? I don’t know why the dye doesn’t stay in. Maybe it’s a ghost thing or -”

“No, why were you dyeing it? I like it.” She gave him a slightly over-dramatic wink and a toothy grin. “Maybe I think it’s sexy.”

“Barbara!” She snorted. Hey, at least she was laughing and not shaving his head for lying to her or whatever those people in Definitely Good Relationships would do when their partners did something wrong. He rubbed at his face for a second, just trying to process the whole thing. “I kind of thought it made me look old.” Delicate fingers brushed over his jawline before making their way back into his hair.

“I’d tell you if you looked old. Don’t worry about it.” She leaned over, pressing a quick kiss to his lips. “Easier said than done, I know.” And then she turned her attention back to the television. 

God, that had gone so much better than he could have possibly imagined. He had really thought she was going to kill him - even though you can’t really kill someone who’s already dead. He knew Barbara would find a way if she needed to. Honestly, it was almost like -

“Ow!” Adam jumped a bit at the sudden shock to his scalp, rubbing at the spot where his wife had just pulled her fingers through his hair a bit too roughly. He looked up at Barbara like a wounded animal. But upon noticing her smug little grin, his jaw dropped a bit, an affronted grunt of sorts coming from the back of his throat.

“Don’t lie to me again, Adam.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first thing I’ve ever posted on ao3, so I’d appreciate any feedback! this is a fun fandom to write for, so don’t expect it to be my last. :)


End file.
